Iron Age

Outside the Shuixi Gate, on the banks of the Qinhuai River, the spring breeze is blowing, and the grass is blooming in the sky. A group of generals of the Beijing Army led by the Duke of the State came to practice for Liu Ziguang.Before leaving, Liu Ziguang drank a few more drinks with them, and everyone became close friends, Peng Jingrong was not idle, and distributed a lot of presents, and a small group of wives and ladies from high-ranking officials in Beijing also came to see them off. , a group of men, a group of women, the men set up a table full of food and wine, and took turns to toast the younger brother General Liu, while the women held the hands of the Peng sisters and looked at each other with tears in their eyes, "Sister (sister) should always Come to see me in the capital."

Sending you off for thousands of miles, there will be a farewell. After the whistle of the paddle steamer was played three times, the farewell finally ended in an atmosphere of reluctance. Liu Ziguang and the two ladies boarded the ship with large and small gifts from friends in Beijing. .

Recently, the Empress Dowager was furious. A lot of officials in the capital were dismissed and investigated. The common people were also very unlucky. Liu Ziguang and the others were sent out by the Duke of the State with a group of generals. Those guards and the guards in charge of the search did not dare to interrogate them.This is how ancient paintings were carried out.

The paddle steamer goes along the Qinhuai River into the Yangtze River and goes down the river.All the way through thousands of sails, returning home is like an arrow.

The waterway from Nanjing to Yangzhou is very busy. There are as many cargo ships, passenger ships, and fishing boats on the Yangtze River as there are schools of fish in the river. Liu Ziguang always feels that there are so many ships behind him that there is an eye staring at him, but after careful observation, there is no Finding suspicious objects, is it because of nervousness?

At noon, the boat stopped at a small pier by the river, and everyone was eating in the cabin, when they heard a loud noise outside, and when they came out, they found that a fishing boat next to it broke from the middle, and the white stubble fracture It shows that the ship hit something hard. There are no hidden reefs in this section of the waterway, and these people on the water know the channel very well. How could they break the ship.

The fishermen who fell into the water were terrified as if they had seen a ghost, and swam desperately to the shore, screaming miserably as they swam, "The water monster has appeared~~~ Run away." He set sail and fled in a panic. After a while, all the ships escaped cleanly, only the paddle steamer from the iron factory was left at the pier.The ships passing by on the distant waterway didn't know what happened here, and they continued to drive as usual.

The captain couldn't figure it out either. After staying in Nanjing for a few days, water monsters appeared here, which is really new.The people on the pier also rushed away, and finally found a little old man who was not able to escape. The old man said that the river was not smooth recently, and a black dragon came from the bottom of the water, and it often turned the river over. Several fishing boats were sunk and injured.And this black dragon can't see the end, no one has seen his face clearly.

Liu Ziguang took out his binoculars to observe the water where the accident occurred. There seemed to be a black shadow standing still below. Could it be a prehistoric creature like the "Loch Ness Monster"?He suddenly became interested, and asked the captain to prepare a set of water anchors, put down the boat, and wanted to see the face of this water monster for himself.

Soon everything was ready, Liu Ziguang put on a tight-fitting sharkskin swimsuit, brought a sharp knife, and dived into the water alone. After a closer look, he first denied the black dragon and the water monster. They must not be living things. It's a man-made boat.

A black submarine sank at the bottom of the river. It looked like a cartoon dragon, with its head and fangs vividly painted on the front, and dragon scales painted on its body. This dragon was obviously fatter, with a body close to a cylinder. A big hole was torn in the iron skin of the boat, and there was a half-person-high conning tower on the back. There was an air inlet and a periscope on the tower. The hull was riveted with metal plates and coated with a layer of waterproofing. paint.Behind the dragon's butt is a propeller, made of pure copper, the workmanship and shape are more exquisite and scientific than those made by Zhu Youxiao.The propeller was tightly entangled by the fishing net. It seemed that it had encountered a fishing boat just now. It showed that it was entangled in the fishing net, and then lost control and crashed into the fishing boat. The water storage tank of the submarine was injured and its power was lost.

When did Ming's navy equip such advanced gadgets?No, the little emperor doesn't even know the propeller, how could there be a submarine? It seems that there is only one answer, and that is the one from the Song Kingdom!

No matter whose ship it is, it is always rescued in case of shipwreck. Liu Ziguang pulled out his sharp blade, cut the fishing net, turned around and was about to leave, when he was surprised to find a man in a black rubber diving suit pointing a strange looking gun at him. , the man wore a glass mask on his face and a tube in his mouth. The tube was connected to the air bag on his back, and a string of air bubbles popped out of his nostrils from time to time.I don't know what the gun in my hand is powered by, it feels like a harpoon that can shoot.

Unable to speak underwater, Liu Ziguang pointed to the short knife in his hand, and then pointed to the cut fishing net. The diver understood, put away the harpoon gun, and floated up. Liu Ziguang held his breath for a long time, and then surfaced.

As soon as the two showed their heads on the river, the man lifted his mask, revealing a pale and handsome face, and saluted with fists in his hands: "Is it General Liu? Next is Lieutenant Commander Zhao Jing of the Song Dynasty."

First climbed into the boat, and then boarded the paddle steamer along the hanging ladder. The two of them took off their wet diving suits on the deck. The man's black rubber diving suit was obviously lighter and softer than Liu Ziguang's fish-skin swimsuit. The duck feet on his feet The palm-shaped flippers are also very peculiar, and the sailors are very curious and gather to watch the fun.

Liu Ziguang hurriedly drove the sailors away and invited Zhao Jing into the cabin. Under the diving suit, Zhao Jing was wearing a navy blue navy suit and golden dragon epaulets, but he still did not take off the traditional Chinese costume. picture of.

"Major Zhao, isn't he pretending to be a dragon king in the river in broad daylight, isn't it sinking? Tell me, what's the purpose of following me?" Liu Ziguang finally understood why he felt that there were eyes staring behind him. It turned out to be the periscope of the submarine.

"Isn't this just about to float up to greet the general? Who would have thought that the fishing boat came suddenly, and I couldn't dodge it in time. Ashamed, the handling performance of the Hunjianglong still needs to be improved." Zhao Jing was a little embarrassed, and a fishing boat let him It's a bit embarrassing to hear that your submarine is down. "There are also envoys from the humble country in the boat, as well as a crew of boatmen, and I ask General Liu to rescue them!"

"How to rescue? How did you come out? Wouldn't it be enough for them to come out?" Liu Ziguang wondered.It turns out that the embassy was here to discuss with me the matter of buying paintings. Even the submarine was used. It seems that a lot of thought was spent.

"This... came out to check the damage. There was a hole in the water storage tank, and the ballast water could not be discharged. It floated up by itself. The propeller was entangled in the fishing net, causing the motor to burn out. The whole boat is now like a dead fish. Envoy My lord must be furious, let him float up from the bottom of the river in a state of embarrassment, and I must hold a grudge, then my life in the navy will be sad, and the captain abandons the ship and leaves, it is a decisive decision in the Song Dynasty navy..." Major Zhao said with a sad face.

"Well, how can I help you?" If you don't get these people out of the water, the transaction cannot be carried out normally.So this favor has to be done.

So and so... Zhao Jing is a technical officer after all, so he immediately came up with a plan.

According to Zhao Jing's plan, Liu Ziguang asked the captain to put the paddle steamer across the channel and stop the two grain ships. This is a standard flat tank ship with a bottom seven feet long and two feet wide and a width of one foot one foot five inches. It contained three thousand shi of grain, and now it is fully loaded and shipped to the north, and the fully loaded ship's side is close to the water.

The cable is made of planed and split green bamboo. The bamboo slices are boiled in a pot and then twisted, which can withstand the force of ten thousand catties.Several divers climbed out of the submarine, tied the cable to a special hook on the hull, and tied the other end firmly to the mast of the tanker, the rope was very tight.

The principle of this scheme is to use the buoyancy of the ship to pull the submarine up. The conventional way to salvage the sunken ship is to find several ships full of ballast (preferably stones), fix the sunken ship and then throw away the ballast. The wreck pulled up.

If time is running out, where can I find some ballast, and if I wait a little longer, someone will suffocate to death.The only way to save time is to throw the grain in the tank boat as ballast directly. Liu Ziguang glanced over, and the guards unsheathed their steel knives, threatening the boatmen and throwing bags of grain into the river. The hull gradually floated up. , the taut cables slowly pulled up the sinking submarine, but the distance of ascent was limited, and the submarine could not be completely pulled out of the water.Heavy objects were also thrown out through the watertight doors inside the submarine in order to reduce its own weight.But still hanging in the river and unable to get up.

At the critical moment, Addison made a plan. He found another long cable, one end was connected to the steam-driven axle of the paddle steamer, and the other end was connected to the cable used by the tanker to pull the submarine. There are quite a few such parts in his possessions, and they just come in handy now.

The paddle steamer drove forward at full power, and thick black smoke came out of the chimney. The sailors threw off the shovel and tried their best to shovel the charcoal to burn the stove. The dragon boat was pulled out, and the huge dragon head rushed out of the water, which shocked the sailors. After a closer look, they realized that it was a strange dragon boat.

The first person to come out of the command tower was the handsome, woman-like Deputy Secretary of the Song Dynasty Mission. This person was dressed in plain white and looked handsome. No, Wen Jun is being polite."

Liu Ziguang's eyes were as big as eggs. Is this person a man or a woman? He wears both men's and women's clothes in the same way. Not to mention his handsome appearance, his name is also a bit feminine?

The submarine drained the water in the water storage tank, and the motor was broken and had to be dragged behind the paddle steamer. In order to cover it, a layer of fishing nets was covered and some aquatic plants were planted.The two tank boat owners who complained endlessly got the banknotes from Liu Ziguang enough to buy more food, and then went happily.

The captain's room of the paddle steamer was temporarily used as a negotiating place. A bodyguard from the death battalion and a soldier from the Song Dynasty navy stood guard at the door. In the room, Liu Ziguang and Peng Jingrong were on one side, and Wen Jun and Zhao Jing sat on the other side of the table. negotiated.

"I am Shi Wenjun, the deputy of the Honglu Temple Shaoqing Mission to the Ming Dynasty, Shi Wenjuan, the deputy commander of the Lieutenant Colonel of the Imperial Forest Army, the hereditary loyal Duke of the Great Song Dynasty.

"I am Zhao Jing, Lieutenant Commander of the Taiping Group of Princes of the Great Song Dynasty, Captain of the Hunjianglong Ship." This person's name is not as long as Wen Jun, and his momentum is also inferior. It seems that the princes and princes are not as good as Zhong Guogong. ah.

Liu Ziguang was confused and didn't understand the meaning of this long list of names. Peng Jingrong explained in a low voice: "The beautiful little white face has a great background. She is a hereditary duke in the Song Dynasty and a member of the House of Lords. She is in the emperor's army. There is also the official title, and he is the number two person in the department in charge of foreign affairs, so he is both civil and military. You can understand that the not-so-pretty boy is the son of a group of princes, and the two are subordinates, so don't confuse them."

Liu Ziguang nodded, and said with a stance: "I am... Liu Ziguang, the painting is in my hand." His titles of vice general of the iron factory and prime accountant are really unattainable, and the title of general who protects the country and fights against rebellion has not yet been fulfilled. , so I had no choice but to skip the lengthy introduction and just say his name, anyway his details are public.There was also a nonsense "painting on my hand" later, just like the kidnapper's line "The hostage is on my hand".

Wen Jun smiled, and two dimples appeared on his fair cheeks, "I know this, I have already authenticated those two pages, and they are written by my Emperor Wen Rende Xianci Xianxiao, the emperor who is in harmony with the body and spirit. Please make an offer, and on behalf of the imperial court, I can immediately answer your request."

"Then I'll just say it," Liu Ziguang took out a small note, which he had prepared a long time ago, gave Wen Jun a sinister look, and was about to open his mouth.